Wisdom

Depend upon it Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
— Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784).

Man’s mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 – 1894).

I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out.
— Apocrypha, 2 Esdras, 2:18.

Gnothi seauton [know thyself]
— From the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Say what you will; monetary rewards in the millions do inspire single-minded effort.
— Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002), The Flamingo’s Smile, Penguin 1991, 217.

Start with what the people know.
— Credo of the Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement, 1920s.

Those who take wisdom as their highest goal, whose faith is deep and whose senses are trained, attain wisdom quickly …
— Bhagavad Gita, 4:39, in the translation of Eknath Easwaran, Arkana Books, 1985.

Those who love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.
— Heraclitus.

There is horse-power and thought-power, but what has horse-power done? It was thought-power which made Christendom and discovered America. Horse-power may send a steamer over the Atlantic in seven or eight days, but thought-power shall send a message across it in as many seconds. And besides all this, thought-power discovered horse-power, and used it.
— Anon., quoted in A Thousand and One Gems of English Prose, selected by Charles Mackay, (19th century?).

There is only one good, namely knowledge. There is only one evil, namely ignorance.
— Diogenes (attrib.)

A pedant is a footnote fetishist.
— Duncan Bain (1944 – ), in a blanket footnote to ‘The footnote considered as an art form’ in the Journal of Onkaparinkology 17(4), 1987.

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
— James Joyce, Ulysses.

Have you noticed how the word ‘intellectual’ is used nowadays? There seems to be a new definition which certainly doesn’t include Rutherford, or Eddington, or Dirac, or Adrian or me. It does seem rather odd, don’t y’know.
— G. H. Hardy (1877 – 1947), quoted by C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, Rede Lecture, 1959.

He came up from Brasenose College,
            Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
            Of every conceivable thing.

Of science and logic he chatters,
            As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,
            I’m sure he’s a talented man.
— W. M. Praed, The Talented Man.

The arts intellectual are four in number; divided according to the ends whereunto they are referred … art of inquiry or invention: art of examination or judgement: art of custody or memory: and art of elocution or tradition.
— Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), Of the Advancement of Learning, second book, XI, 3, 1605.

You will find an index to this blog at the foot of this link. Please be patient: I am pedalling as fast as I can.